


A Battle Outside

by bablevees



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Ambitious But Rubbish, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Roger's kinda upset but I mean wouldn't we all be, au where magic is kinda known but not discussed nor really accepted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-09-21 16:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17046914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bablevees/pseuds/bablevees
Summary: It's 2AM, Roger revisits a part of him he hasn't seen in a few months, his friends are understanding and Brian has made one (1) horrible joke so far. Other cat jokes are about to be made.





	1. Rattle Your Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Boy! It really was 2AM when I started this.

Someone screeched. John's eyes snapped open.  
He had a vague idea about who might have been screeching, but he had no clue about the reason. The person who he thought was screeching screeched a lot, for a lot of various reasons.  
Studiowork was out, because it was 2AM and they were not in the studio, for once, and anyway, they've agreed not to be screeching at home (at 2AM) just without any reason, so it must have been _something_.

John stared at the ceiling, wondering if he should stand up and check. He would have loved to stay in bed and fall asleep again, but the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't let him. And anyway, he's been sleeping for quite some time now, so he couldn't go back to sleep if he wanted to.

He stood up, looking over to Brian's bed. Yeah, it was in the same room ad his. In other words, they were roommates. He could hear Freddie's muffled laughter in his soul at just the mere thought of the word 'roommates'. John didn't know why it was so funny. 

John very quietly opened the door, and closing it back, he tiptoed down the hallway to the other room Freddie and Roger shared, because they were roommates as well (Freddie's laughing growing near hysterical in his ears), to see why on earth Roger screeched at 2AM.

He was not prepared for the sight that greeted him once he opened the door. Of course, he knocked, but it must have been to quiet for them to hear.

For one, Freddie was still asleep on the bed further away from the door, and John wondered for a second if there was something wrong with him for Roger to scream, then he saw the suspiciously big cat on Roger's bed, and wondered if there was something wrong with Freddie not to scream himself.  
But again, he was asleep, so that's probably the reason he didn't scream. John was glad they didn't just randomly scream in their sleep. It would have caused a racket long ago.

Focusing once more on the elephant in the room, who was actually a lion right now. On Roger's bed. And it was looking kind of panicked but still had very nice hair, so considering all these factors, John had no doubt in his mind who this lion was.

Still, the only thing he said, begrudgingly, was:  
"Why?"  
And massaged the ridge of his nose like he'd seen tired parents do in movies and actually in real life too, but maybe they've all just learned it from the movies.  
"How would I know?" rasped the lion, who apparently still had the right mouth to speak. God, John thought, nothing can ever be perfect.

The bed was looking a bit too strained, with a lion standing on it. John wished Roger would come off it.  
"Does this happen to you often?" he asked instead, eyeing the bedframe subtly. It was holding together okay for now.

Roger, the lion took a deep breath, like he was considering telling John something very serious, and he probably was.  
"Well," he said quietly, "not anymore."  
"Not anymore?" John asked, despite knowing how much everyone, including himself, hated being questioned on what they just said three seconds ago. It was probably not a good idea to annoy a lion, however blond or Roger it was. John remembered reading a Gerald Durrell book wherein he had been somehow taking care of a blond lion. Not that John was willing to jump to conclusions about blond lions, but maybe, just maybe, he could let himself question the thing Roger said just three seconds ago.

And hey! He was right. At least Roger hadn't killed him yet.

"Yeah," Roger said instead. "I'm a lion-shapeshifter from my mum's side. I'll tell you the whole story of that when the others wake up, because they _will_ , hopefully, and I won't be back to human by then, so. You get me."

"Uhuh," John grinned. "Say, do you need anything? Should I maybe let you out on the roof?"

Roger looked every bit as unimpressed as he must have felt.  
"Not ever," he sniffled, finally jumping down to the floor, "I might get away. You know what, maybe it would be better to do that explanation thing now, in case I. You know. Get away. I'll go to the living room, you wake Bri and Fred up. Can you prepare them? You know. Mentally."

Roger chose to ignore John's answer, and tried to get used to walking on four paws again. He hasn't done this since before Queen moved in together, which wasn't that long ago (just two months? Two and a half?), but it wasn't a long enough time for him to absolutely _need_ to turn into a bloody lion. He had to admit, it was a longer time than he'd ever went without turning into a bloody lion before. He must have dreamt something that triggered it.

"Great," he mumbled as he plopped down next to the couch, "we'll all be sleep deprived tomorrow. But what can you do?" He yawned.

That was the moment his flatmates decided to walk in.

"Wouh!" Brian said, stopping his sleepy walking at once.  
Freddie, who was considerably shorter than Brian, wasn't impressed.  
"Brian, I want to see him! Don't stand in the doorway!" Don't block up the hall, he continued the song in his head, mentally patting himself on the back. Good job, Freddie.

"Wouh!" Brian said again, but complied and moved a bit to the left.  
"Wouh!" said Freddie.  
"Wouh?" John said too, wondering if he was missing something.  
"Wouh!" Roger finished the circle from his plopped down position. Now they all said wouh. 

Freddie and Brian stared at him from the doorway. Roger wasn't sure if it was shock or fear that nailed them there, but he sure did hope they'd overcome it soon. He needed to talk about this.

"I wonder how you guys didn't wake up at my screeching. But I'm glad. About that part. Not the lion part."

John pushed at his flatmates' backs, making them stumble into the room and fall at each other. Or to.

"You see, I've always been able to do this," Roger continued, "and probably you guys could have been, too, if you come from my family. We're, you know, we shift shape. At will, mostly, but there are things that can trigger it. Uh, in this case, it was a dream I don't remember."

He became quiet. He didn't really rehearse what he was going to say, and now he was stuck. There was a really interesting crack in the corner, there. Wow. Look at that. A mouse could fit through that. Wow.  
It was Freddie who broke the momentarily silence.

"Darling, I think all of us have heard of shapeshifters, from childhood tales, if nothing else. We just, you know. Didn't expect to actually see one, ever, right, Brian? John. In our living room."

Roger, still lying down, looked up at them.  
"And do you have a problem with having one there?"

His friends seemed to tense up a bit at this, which made Roger tense up a lot. John was quick to notice.  
"No, Roger, we don't have. A problem. We promise. Right?"  
"Huh." "Right!"  
"Right. We're just, you know, a bit surprised. We will surely have to make some adjustments and. It'll take a bit getting used to, and you'll have to tell us everything about this. But I, for one, could actually get used to a lion in the living room."  
"You do look quite amazing, dear," Freddie agreed.  
Brian, meanwhile, looked like he was on the verge of breaking down in something.  
And he was! His mouth quivered, then he burst out laughing.  
"Sorry, it's just that, uh, I'm thinking about how, if you were a tiger, right now, you could have said. That. There are things that can. Tigger. It." He said with the biggest grin on his face in between wheezes.  
Roger looked unimpressed, frankly.  
Brian fingergunned, and joined Roger on the floor, trying to laugh quieter than he was going to. "It's half past two," he managed to whisper, and bit down on his lower lip.  
John and Freddie just looked offended.


	2. Turn, Turn, Turn Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello, it's 4:20, I'm very sleepy again abd I didn't read this at all. I'm going to proofread and cringe tomorrow. That's what I do. Proofread and cringe. This is talky, but something is going to happen in this fic at some point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> am sad  
> But this is an update  
> Wow

Someone sneezed. Brian's eyes snapped open. They sneezed into Brian's face, which was quite unusual in itself. He slept alone.  
On top of that, this sneeze was quite a bit more powerful than any sneeze his bandmates were capable of, because as far as Brian remembered, they always did sound like birds when sneezing. This made him wonder if tits sneezed. He came to the conclusion that yes, sure, why not? Tits got colds.

But again, this sneeze couldn't be one of his friends, then. Who sneezed in his face in his sleep, then?  
He then remembered to look with his eyes, and in that same moment he remembered that he fell asleep on the floor next to his friend who turned out to be a shapeshifter the whole time they'd known him. He was a bit hurt Roger didn't trust them with this little pebble of information, actually. Really, he'd known him for, how many years was it? He'd know if he knew what year it was right now. But he didn't. He was still sleepy.

But it did seem like it was Roger who sneezed.

One bit of useful knowledge Brian possessed was that people don't sneeze or cough in their sleep.  
He wouldn't ever admit it, but this was the only thing he hoped his children would learn, if he ever had them, and so he was planning on teaching them this. All his knowledge of classical literature and of space was nothing, compared to this.

With this important knowledge of his, he deduced that Roger was awake. Because it was him who sneezed, because he was the only one in the room besides Brian, and because Brian was asleep just moments ago, it couldn't have been him who sneezed. God, he was so smart.

"Roger," he decided to say, "can you not."  
"I cannot not," grumbled Roger. "Holding back a sneeze isn't healthy. Sneezing isn't healthy either, if done the wrong way. Breathing isn't healthy, if breathing the wrong air. Living is bloody unhealthy."

Brian propped himself up on his elbows and blinked at Roger, trying to clear his eyes. Yes, he was still a lion. He wondered when he was going to change back.

"Roger," he decided to say. "When are you going to change back?"

Roger also lifted his head and blinked, but it didn't help his vision clear because it was poor. No amount of blinking can help poor vision, god knows he wished it would. 

"Well, you see," he said after a while, hazy blue eyes searching for Brian's, "the thing is, I don't know. I'm really uneducated."

Brian was taken aback.  
"You don't need to be educated to know that! Haven't you been doing this all your life?"  
Oh, the naivety of the clueless.

"I have, indeed, as far as I can remember, and I even went to study biology because I hoped it'd help me find out why and when I turn into and back from a lion, you see. It's not my idea of fun when you're nine and suddenly you're not a human child but a lion cub. Or when you're on a date with your significant other, but suddenly you're a sharp and strange cat with weird hair. I would have absolutely loved to know how I could have avoided these scenes, but guess what, I couldn't and I still can't. And the next worst thing is that it hurts. A lot."

Brian wasn't prepared to hear this.  
He's heard that shapeshifters knew exactly what they where doing, how they were doing it, and when they were doing it. He's heard that they were under complete control of themselves, and did unspeakably vicious, inhuman things to the poor, poor normal humans.

He'd believed that this wasn't exactly the case, because he believed in love, but still took a breath and asked:  
"What's the first worst thing?"

Brian knew that Roger knew that he knew what it was.

"It's what people think," he said, still. "Anyway, when it happens, I'm going to scream a lot. Woke Deaky up with it yesterday. You can't say I didn't warn you!"

"Yeah."  
Brian wasn't sure what to do next. He wanted to reassure Roger that he knew people were saying the exact opposite about shapeshifters than what he, who was one himself said, and he wanted to let him know he believed him. Was it important, at all?

"Roger," he decided to say. "You know..."  
His gaze shifted to look at the wall. It was ivory. Nice. The sunshine hit it just right.

"Yeah?" Roger urged him.

"I just wanted to say that you're the next best thing since... Dandelions."

He stared back into Roger's eyes. Roger stared back into his eyes.  
Brian couldn't take it anymore.

"This was a good one, admit it!" he laughed.  
"It was horrible! It was worse than your Winnie the Pooh pun yesterday! Stop it! You're legally required to stop!" but he was grinning as well.  
"God, can you write that one down? I want to love and cherish it forever."

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, Brian listening to Roger's very audible breathing.

Looking at the clock, he noticed it was about half past eight.

"I wonder where Freddie and Deaks are," Brian voiced his very thoughts, "I can't really hear them from the kitchen."

"I think they're still asleep," Roger sat up, "it's not unlikely."  
He stretched.  
He looked very much like a cat, Brian thought. Or is it just what I want to believe?

"I'm going to make tea and wake them up, in that case. You want some as well?"  
Brian stood up and realized that his back was ruined for days. Too bad.

"I'll pass this time, thanks," Roger looked up at him.

He knew he'd have to pass a couple more times in the following days. He really didn't know how many days, but he hoped he wouldn't have to fast for too long. He wasn't shaped like something that could sit by a table right now.  
He just couldn't deal with the humiliation of having to eat off the floor, and while he hoped his friends would be maybe normal about it, he knew that he'd rather die first than have to eat out of a bowl. He'd done that a couple of times.

It was complicated. He had way too more thoughts than he could sort out.

He heard the sounds of the kettle and a little while later, the Freddie Mercury from the kitchen. This was so unfair, he thought in a posh accent, hoping it'd take some weight from it. But it didn't. It was unfair through and through.

He lay down again and hoped he'd just change back to human soon, no matter how much it hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this sleep deprived mess!  
> Title from a Bob Dylan song again.


End file.
